


Run Red

by dizzy_fire



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Rotkäppchen | Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale), Slavic Mythology & Folklore
Genre: Blood, Gen, Horror, Misses Clause Challenge, Supernatural Elements, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/pseuds/dizzy_fire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows there are monsters in the woods...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cherith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherith/gifts).



There was once a girl who was tied to a stake, and as the wood piled high around her, she raised her head and thought she could escape on raven wings. But this is not her story.

There was a girl who was locked in a cage of thorns, and they grew around her and through her, and the greatest thorn pierced her heart; there was a girl who was made to dance in red-hot shoes from dusk to dawn, until the laughter died, and so did she; but we'll not tell their stories today, either.

There was once a girl who walked into the woods with her grandmother, and this is where our story begins.

No, they were not the same woods as these, though they were alike enough. There are many dark forests in the world, and in all of them, there are monsters.

We'll call the girl Little Red. This is not her true name, but it is the name by which you may have heard of her, so Little Red she will be. She was much younger than you – a child, really, with the calloused hands and bony limbs of one who gets not enough food but more than enough work. Unlike most people in her village, Little Red did not think much of going into the woods. She'd been there before with her grandmother, because there were some plants that could not be grown in Grandma's little herb-garden, either for fear of the neighbours' suspicious eyes, or because they simply would not take root away from the dark heart of the forest. Little Red's grandmother was something of a witch, of course, but she was cautious enough and needed enough that no men ever came for her with steel and fire. The villagers mistrusted her all the same, and some must have breathed a sigh of relief when she never came back from the woods after that day.

(Their relief would only last until they learnt why it was good to have a witch among you when you lived in a little village on the edge of a great, twisted forest. But, again, this is a tale we shall not tell today.)

Little Red's grandmother was something of a witch, then, and she knew better than most what sort of creatures lived in the forest. That was why she went deep into the woods once a year, on a certain day, to pick wolfsbane and deadly nightshade, and why she took Little Red with her – so that the girl would know what to do once the grandmother was no longer alive.

She did not expect death to come as it did, on that day, in blood, with the jaws of a great wolf.

The wolf had been tracking them for a while, biding his time. He was cunning and cruel, as those beasts often are, and though he despised the old witch, he had no intention of testing the limits of her peasant magic. So he simply waited until she was suitably distracted with her plant-picking, and then he struck.

Little Red turned at the sudden noise. She saw the terror in her grandmother's eyes. She heard the scream, suddenly transformed into a gurgle, as the wolf tore out Grandma's throat in a bright spray of red. She wished she could scream, too.

She watched the wolf feed.

When he was done, he padded over to Little Red and smiled, or rather showed his teeth. There were bits of flesh in his teeth, blood on his muzzle.

“Hello, little girl,” said the wolf, and leapt.

And Little Red, who until then could only stare at him and shake, remembered that she was a witch's granddaughter. She reached into the basket for the nightshade and wolfsbane, and threw them in the wolf's face, and screamed a spell that Grandma – _Grandma_ – had taught her. Whether it was the spell, or the aconite, or both, I do not know to this day, but the wolf's jaws snapped shut and he fell to the ground in mid-leap, rolling and twisting like a broken toy, pawing at his face and trying to howl his fury through a mouth that would not open.

Little Red ran, of course. She ran through bushes and brambles, tripped over roots, ducked under branches, slipped on pine cones that bit deep into the soles of her bare feet. Her breath came in dry sobs and gasps, but she still did not – still could not – cry. She ran, each step taking her further away from the path.

Eventually she fell and could no longer get back on her feet. She curled up, like a small, frightened animal, and listened to her own breath as it wheezed in and out of her chest. Her eyes burned, and whenever she blinked to clear them, she saw her grandmother's bloody bones. There weren't enough tears in the world to cry out the horror, the injustice.

She lay there long enough for her pulse to slow down, expecting each trembling heartbeat to be her last. The forest was silent, no wolf tearing through the underbrush, but was this any comfort? They had not heard him before, either.

Then, suddenly, the wind brought her a noise. Tock-tock-tock. Tock-tock-tock. Woodcutters. There were woodcutters in the woods!

Little Red rose on shaky legs that did not feel like her own. Woodcutters had axes, they had fire. They would keep the wolf at bay.

Slowly, she followed the echoes. They led her to a wide clearing, in which a solitary man hacked away at a large oak. He had shiny shoes and a belt with a shiny metal buckle. She tried to call out to him, but her voice was gone, weathered down to a small squeak, and the woodcutter didn't turn around. She approached him, then, taking care not to get in the way of his axe.

The woodcutter's eyes widened when he saw her. “Strike me down as I stand, but it's a little girl! What are _you_ doing in the forest, then?”

Little Red tried to explain, but her voice was a whisper, a breath, and not even she could hear what she was saying. The man made an impatient gesture. “Come closer, girl! I can't make it out at all.”

She took a few steps forward, then hesitated. For some reason, her pulse once again thundered in her ears. She looked closely at the man, at his dark hair and bright eyes, and his clean, broad face. Something – something was...

The woodcutter smiled. It was a wide smile, but it still did not seem to fit all of his teeth.

“Hello, little girl,” said the wolf, and raised his axe high.

***

There was light and warmth, and the smell of freshly baked bread. Little Red woke up but didn't open her eyes at first. She felt tired, as you do after crying in your sleep, but she was at peace. The bed was soft and comfortable, and oh, she could stay there forever. Nothing bad could happen while she was there.

Nothing bad... Little Red remembered her grandmother's wide-open mouth, and that horrible, gurgling scream, and started to cry with her eyes still closed.

She heard footsteps, then, strange and skittering (skritch-thump, skritch-thump), coming to a halt by her bed. She thought dimly about rats or spiders, but this did not scare her. There was no fear left in her, no curiosity, only a dull, bottomless sadness.

A hand brushed her forehead and she at last opened her eyes. There, before her, stood --

_“Grandmother!”_

Little Red sprang up, kicking the coverlets aside, catching Grandma in a wild hug and crying, laughing, babbling all about the strange dream she had had. Grandma was warm and soft, and held her close without saying a word.

Eventually the girl fell silent, content to simply breathe in and out, to revel in the light and the warmth. And then (because she was, for good or ill, the granddaughter of a witch) it suddenly occurred to her that her house had never been so well-lit, her bed never so comfortable... 

...and her Grandma never so quiet.

Her blood ran cold, but she did not let it show. Instead, she slowly ended the hug and smiled without looking up.

“I'll go outside, Grandma,” she said brightly. “I'll bring us some water from the well.”

Silence. Little Red took a few steps towards the door. The further she got, the more the sunlight seemed to recede. Shadows pooled in its place and crawled on the walls. Only the windows remained bright, though the light they let in was now more red than yellow. Dim silhouettes danced and swayed on the other side. Little Red walked forward, measuring each step in frantic heartbeats. Then, as her fingers were about to brush the warped wood of the door, somebody rattled the handle from the other side.

Little Red paused with her hand in the air. Then, from behind her, she heard, “Go, then. He has come here after you.”

The voice was older than Little Red's grandmother, older than any human, as old and horrible as the dark heart of the woods. Out of all the creatures in all the stories her grandmother had told her, only one could sound like this. Old Bony-Shanks, the Hag with the Iron Teeth.

“You're Baba Yaga,” she said, and was surprised to hear that her voice did not shake. Perhaps terror was a river, and on the far bank you could find something like courage.

(No... hush, he hasn't found you yet. Attend; there is still time to finish the story.)

The door shook and groaned in its frame. Little Red let her hand drop to her side.

“You're Baba Yaga,” she repeated, “and you've saved me from the wolf. Can he get in here?”

“Not until you open the door.”

“And what if I don't open it?”

“Then you will stay here.”

“How long?”

“Until you open the door.”

Little Red put her hand against the wooden surface and closed her eyes. She pictured the wolf raging outside. Perhaps he looked like a human, perhaps like an animal, perhaps a hulking, shambling beast that was both and neither. For some reason, the human frightened her most of all.

“I don't know why he didn't kill me,” she confessed quietly. “I thought he would eat me for sure.”

“He didn't eat you.”

Little Red took a deep breath and slammed the door open.

Even in the darkness that seemed to flow out of the hut, the wolf-man's belt buckle still had a shine to it. His axe did not; it was dull and red and sticky.

“Little girl, little girl,” called the wolf. His teeth were bigger than before; they cut into the underside of his human lips, and he drooled blood, but didn't seem to notice. “Come out and talk to me. Do you like your new grandma better than the old one?” Suddenly he made a grab for Little Red, but she was ready for him, and ducked back inside the cottage, where he couldn't reach her. The wolf laughed. “Come with me, little girl. I only want to eat you but she... she will consume you, devour you for years, until there's nothing left. Come with me – I promise _I'll_ eat you quick!”

A rustle of skirts. Skritch-thump. Skritch-thump. Skritch-thump.

“Move aside, child.”

As Baba Yaga came to a stop at her side, Little Red studied her for the first time. She had a long, crooked nose, like Grandma had always said, and more warts than any stories could do justice to. Tattered skirts hid her legs from view, but Little Red was quite certain that one of them was made of wood, and the other – nothing but fleshless bones. 'She may kill me, and I cannot stop her,' the girl thought, 'but if she does, I hope she'll kill the wolf as well.'

“Move,” Baba Yaga said again, and gave the girl a shove for good measure. “That's enough of you for now.” As Little Red stumbled away, the witch turned her full attention to the wolf, who stared back with an insolent smile on his face. “What will you do here? I'm no friend of yours.”

“I know what you are and what you aren't, Old Mother of the Woods,” laughed the wolf. “And you are weak.” He brought one foot over the threshold, and then another. He moved slowly, grunting with effort, but his legs were steady, his axe was sharp, and each step took him closer to the witch. “Used to be, I wouldn't be able to enter your house against your will. Used to be, you had the power to stop me. Now look at you! I'll kill you, crone, and I'll eat your heart, and then there shall be no one in this forest more powerful than I.”

From the corner in which she was crouching, Little Red saw a glimpse of the witch's iron smile.

“Who says you're here against my will?” Baba Yaga asked quietly, and snapped her fingers.

One, and the axe flew out of the wolf's hand and clattered uselessly to the floor. Two, and the wolf's indignant howl was cut off in mid-note. Three, and the creature was knocked down, helpless, defeated... until he rolled and sprang up with a snarl, launching himself at the corner where Little Red was hiding.

His own axe met him halfway there. Afterwards, Little Red liked to think that there was a look of shock on the wolf's face when the axe split his skull apart like rotten wood.

Baba Yaga nodded at the girl, as if she'd expected her to do this all along. Perhaps she had.

“You will be of use yet. That was a good blow.”

The wolf-man's heels were drumming against the floor as his body twisted in its final convulsions. Baba Yaga gave him an indifferent look, walked around him this way and that, then leaned over, and... For some reason, Little Red's eyes wouldn't quite focus on what happened next, but it seemed to her that she saw the hag's mouth open wide, and wider still, and then there was no trace of the wolf left anywhere, except for the axe in Little Red's hand.

Baba Yaga stood up again. “Dumb beast,” she said, almost wistfully. “Tooth and claw, blood and bone. That's no way to kill a proper hag.”

“What's the right way, then?” Little Red asked, before she could stop herself.

“Curious, are you? Hah! One day I shall tell you, but not before you need to know.

“You'll stay with me now and be my apprentice, of course,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

Little Red shrugged. _Of course._ The witch seemed to think that this was the natural thing to do, and to be honest, Little Red couldn't say that it wasn't. She had no better ideas and nowhere else to go. Still, something was tugging at her curiosity. “Was this why you didn't let the wolf kill and eat me?”

Baba Yaga was silent for a while. Then––

“I didn't let him eat you.”

And Little Red looked down at her red, red hands and her red, red dress, and thought about the axe, which had been wet with blood even before she had used it to kill the wolf. Then she sat down, cradling the axe, half-laughing and half-crying so hard that she couldn't breathe.

(It was lucky, then, that she didn't really need to.)

The fit lasted a while, but eventually the girl was calm again. She had two more questions for Baba Yaga, who observed her with a perfect lack of interest.

“Will you teach me how to do magic?”

“Yes. For seven years I'll teach you, and then you may go your way. But one day I shall call for you, and you will come back.”

“Can magic kill wolves? All wolves?”

“No. Not all of them.”

“In that case,” said Little Red, wiping her nose on a sleeve, “I'll just have to use the axe as well.”

***

Little Red travelled the world for many years. She killed wolves, as she'd promised; she killed all sorts of other monsters, too. Perhaps she made a difference. Perhaps she didn't. But she––

––I, _I,_ so many years since I have said it, so many years since I have even thought it––

––I am old now, and weary, and it's time for another girl to learn how she should kill a proper hag.

So listen closely, girl who runs through the woods to evade the hunter – you will not escape. He will find you and kill you, and he'll cut out your heart. But this won't be the end.

For seven years I'll teach you, and then I'll let you go.

But one day, you will come back.

**Author's Note:**

> SUDDENLY, BABA YAGA.
> 
> Okay, it wasn't that much of a surprise if you'd read the tags, I guess. Since one of the interpretations of the Little Red Riding Hood story is the girl-to-woman maturity tale, it got me thinking about other portrayals of women and womanhood in fairytales and folklore. Baba Yaga is a particularly fascinating example - she is a fearsome, man-eating hag, but she is not wholly evil, and in fact often helps the heroine on her journey. I thought it would be interesting to bring together the young girl about to lose her innocence, and the [Arch-Crone, the Goddess of Wisdom and Death, the Bone Mother](http://www.oldrussia.net/baba.html). Hence, Little Red Riding Hood meets Baba Yaga; and once I was there, I figured I might as well throw in a few more veiled references to other women in fairy tales. I'm still not quite sure if the result makes sense outside of my own head, but I hope you enjoyed reading it nonetheless.


End file.
